Helpless
by Mrs. HopeEstheim
Summary: He had always been watching her. Natsu couldn't tell when it had started, but it simply had, and he wouldn't change anything. After all, if he didn't look after that weirdo, who would? Nalu Week 2015, Day 3: Transformation. One-shot. Complete.


**NaLu Week, Day 3:** _ **Transformation**_

 **Well…I'm late on Day 1 and Day 2, but I can at least get one of the prompts done on time, right? Was originally posted on my Tumblr, _panda013._**

 _ **MY FICS ARE NOT SPOILER FREE.**_ **This includes mentions of recent chapters and events in the GMG arc.**

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He had always been watching her.

Natsu couldn't tell when it had started, but it simply _had_ , and he wouldn't change anything. After all, if he didn't look after that weirdo, who would? Lucy was always getting herself into sticky situations, and those few times that he had only saved her by chance tormented him.

What if something happened to her while he wasn't there? When he wasn't paying attention?

He had already lost her once because he wasn't prepared—sure, it was her future self, but sometimes, even in his waking moments, he remembered. And just the thought tore him apart from the inside because he was supposed to be there to _protect her_. She'd be angry if she heard him say it, though. So he didn't.

But, since he was always watching her, he was amazed when he realized how much she had changed. He'd seen every step of the progress, so it had seemed like very little had changed over time, but when he stopped to look back, he could see everything. Lucy was still Lucy, and she always would be, but there was something… _different_. It took Natsu a long time to see that, but once he saw that it didn't take him much longer to figure out just how many changes she had undergone.

She was strong.

The dragonslayer had always known that, but seeing her take a beating in two rounds of the Grand Magic Games had _killed_ him. And knowing that at least one of those beatings was due to some jackass interfering from the outside?

That made him _furious_. And you don't piss off a dragon if you know what's good for you.

And then when he saw her in that cube thing, after they'd been separated. She was beaten, bruised, and had tears streaming down her cheeks as she clutched a broken golden key to her chest—and he'd never seen anyone more brave, or anyone more beautiful, than Lucy in that moment, after she had made the biggest sacrifice anyone could possibly make in order to save everyone else.

Because losing a friend is a bigger sacrifice than giving your own life, hands down. And he would be the first to admit that he couldn't do it. Natsu was the type that would try to save everyone if he could, so he'd probably die in the attempt rather than sacrifice someone else.

It kind of felt like an easy way out.

It was after that fight with Tartaros that Natsu knew he needed to get stronger, especially if he wanted to be able to protect everyone in the future. At least that's what he was telling himself as he trekked farther and farther away from his friends and all he had known.

He knew he was lying to himself.

The only motivation he had was protecting her smile, her cheerfulness. Natsu never wanted to see Lucy in that state ever again, and he never wanted to see her lose another one of her spirit friends because he wasn't there to protect her. But he knew that protecting her from doing the same in the future was nothing compared to that one single spirit she'd lost contact with. Aquarius had been with her for years, and only Cancer had been at Lucy's call for as long as the testy water spirit.

The bonds that they shared were deep, and they had only waxed stronger in the instant that they were given up…forever.

But as he stupidly watched Lucy and Erza pave their way, and make their tourist ruse more believable, he realized part of why her _sexy_ act had worked for the first time, and he felt the warmth creeping up from within, from his toes to the twisting pit of his stomach to the tip of the spikiest pink tuft of hair on his head.

Lucy had become comfortable and confident in herself.

She _believed_ in herself, and she had undergone so material a transformation from that simple fact that she became someone Natsu almost didn't recognize. He supposed that part of it was his fault for leaving her all alone for the last year, but in his defense he hadn't expected Fairy Tail to scatter to the winds immediately after. He had expected her to be surrounded by friends and the rest of the guild family…not alone, keeping loose tabs on whoever she'd managed to track down but too scared to reach out to them.

No, Natsu hadn't expected to come back to a Lucy who had been broken and who had painstakingly reassembled the pieces of herself on her own.

She was a new person, a stronger person, a better mage, but despite all of her changes, her improvements, her _transformation_ , Lucy was still Lucy.

And it still killed him to see her disappearing before his eyes when he was helpless to stop it.


End file.
